What Is a Psychopath?

The neuroscience of psychopathy reports some intriguing findings.

First, a bit of terminological history to clear up any confusion about the meanings of “sociopath,” “psychopath,” and related terms. In the early 1800s, doctors who worked with mental patients began to notice that some of their patients who appeared outwardly normal had what they termed a “moral depravity” or “moral insanity,” in that they seemed to possess no sense of ethics or of the rights of other people. The term “psychopath” was first applied to these people around 1900. The term was changed to “sociopath” in the 1930s to emphasize the damage they do to society. Currently researchers have returned to using the term “psychopath.” Some of them use that term to refer to a more serious disorder, linked to genetic traits, which produces more dangerous individuals, while continuing to use “sociopath” to refer to less dangerous people who are seen more as products of their environment, including their upbringing. Other researchers make a distinction between “primary psychopaths,” who are thought to be genetically caused, and “secondary psychopaths,” seen more as a product of their environments.

The current approach to defining sociopathy and the related concepts is to use a list of criteria. The first such list was developed by Hervey Cleckley (1941), who is known as the first person to describe the condition in detail. Anyone fitting enough of these criteria counts as a psychopath or sociopath. There are several such lists in use. The most commonly used is called the Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R), developed by Robert Hare and his colleagues. An alternative version, called the Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI), was developed in 1996 by Lilienfeld and Andrews. The book that psychologists and psychiatrists use to categorize and diagnose mental illness, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV), contains a category for something called “antisocial personality disorder” (APD), while the World Health Organization delineates a similar category it calls "dissocial personality disorder." These are much broader categories than that of psychopathy. The category of psychopath is seen as included within this category, but considerably smaller so that only roughly 1 in 5 people with APD is a psychopath (Kiehl and Buckholtz, 2010).

If we overlay all of these lists of criteria, we can see them coalescing into the following core set:

Uncaring

The PCL describes psychopaths as being callous and showing a lack of empathy, traits which the PPI describes as “coldheartedness.” The criteria for dissocial personality disorder include a “callous unconcern for the feelings of others.” There are now several lines of evidence that point to the biological grounding for the uncaring nature of the psychopath. For us, caring is a largely emotion-driven enterprise. The brains of psychopaths have been found to have weak connections among the components of the brain’s emotional systems. These disconnects are responsible for the psychopath’s inability to feel emotions deeply. Psychopaths are also not good at detecting fear in the faces of other people (Blair et al., 2004). The emotion of disgust also plays an important role on our ethical sense. We find certain types of unethical actions disgusting, and this works to keep us from engaging in them and makes us express disapproval of them. But psychopaths have extremely high thresholds for disgust, as measured by their reactions when shown disgusting photos of mutilated faces and when exposed to foul odors.

One promising new line of research is based on the recent discovery of a brain network responsible for understanding the minds of others. Called the default mode network (because it also performs other tasks and is operating most of the time when we are awake), it involves a cluster of several different areas in the brain’s cortex. The first studies have been done on the function of this network in psychopaths, and as expected, there are problems there. Different studies have noted “aberrant functional connectivity” among the parts of the network, along with reduced volume in some of the network's crucial areas.

Shallow emotions

Psychopaths, and to a degree, sociopaths, show a lack of emotion, especially the social emotions, such as shame, guilt, and embarrassment. Cleckley said that the psychopaths he came into contact with showed a “general poverty in major affective reactions” and a “lack of remorse or shame.” The PCL describes psychopaths as “emotionally shallow” and showing a lack of guilt. Psychopaths are notorious for their lack of fear. When normal people are put into an experimental situation where they anticipate that something painful will happen, such as a mild electric shock or a mildly aversive pressure applied to a limb, a brain network activates. Normal people will also show a clear skin conductance response produced by sweat gland activity. In psychopathic subjects, however, this brain network showed no activity, and no skin conductance responses were emitted (Birbaumer et al., 2012).

Irresponsibility

According to Cleckley psychopaths show unreliability, while the PCL mentions “irresponsibility,” and the PPI describes psychopaths as showing “blame externalization” (i.e., they blame others for events that are actually their fault). They may admit blame when forced into a corner, but these admissions are not accompanied by a sense of shame or remorse, and they have no power to change the sociopath’s future behavior.

Insincere speech

Ranging from what the PCL describes as “glibness” and “superficial charm,” to Cleckley’s “untruthfulness” and “insincerity,” to outright “pathological lying,” there is a trend toward devaluing speech among psychopaths by inflating and distorting it toward selfish ends. The criteria for APD include “conning others for personal profit or pleasure.” One concerned father of a young sociopathic woman said, “I can't understand the girl, no matter how hard I try. It's not that she seems bad or exactly that she means to do wrong. She can lie with the straightest face, and after she's found in the most outlandish lies she still seems perfectly easy in her own mind” (Cleckley, 1941, p. 47). This casual use of words may be attributable to what some researchers call a shallow sense of word meaning. Psychopaths do not show the same differential brain response to emotional terms over neutral terms that normal people do (Williamson et al., 1991). They also have trouble understanding metaphors and abstract words.

Overconfidence

The PCL describes sociopaths as possessing a “grandiose sense of self worth.” Cleckley speaks frequently of the boastfulness of his patients. Hare (1993) describes an imprisoned sociopath who believed he was a world-class swimmer.

Narrowing of attention

According to Newman and his colleagues, the core deficit in psychopathy is a failure of what they call response modulation (Hiatt and Newman, 2006). When normal people engage in a task, we are able to alter our activity or modulate our responses, depending on relevant peripheral information that appears after the task has begun. Psychopaths are specifically deficient in this ability, and according to Newman, this explains the impulsivity of psychopaths, a trait which shows up in several of the lists of criteria, as well as their problems with passive avoidance and with processing emotions.

Top-down attention tends to be under voluntary control, whereas bottom-up attention happens involuntarily. But bottom-up attention can temporarily capture top-down attention, as when movement in the periphery of our visual field attracts our attention. Psychopaths have trouble using top-down attention to accommodate information that activates bottom-up attention during a task. In normal people, this process tends to happen automatically. When the hunter is scanning for deer, a rabbit hopping into the periphery of his visual field automatically attracts his attention. Top-down attentional processes monitor the field of attention for conflicts and resolve them. The standard task for assessing this is called the Stroop task, in which the subject must state which color words are printed in. The problem is that the words themselves are conflicting color words, such as “red” printed in blue ink, so the subjects must suppress a strong inclination to read the words. There are now several studies indicating that psychopaths actually perform better than normal people on these tasks, perhaps because they are not distracted by the discrepant color (Hiatt et al., 2004; Newman et al., 1997).

Selfishness

Cleckley spoke of his psychopaths showing a “pathologic egocentricity [and incapacity for love],” which is affirmed in the PPI by its inclusion of egocentricity among its criteria. The PCL also mentions a “parasitic lifestyle.”

Inability to plan for the future

Cleckley said that his psychopaths showed a “failure to follow any life plan.” According to the PCL, psychopaths have a “lack of realistic long-term goals,” while the PPI describes them as showing a “carefree nonplanness.”

Violence

The criteria for dissocial personality include: a “very low tolerance to frustration and a low threshold for discharge of aggression, including violence.” The criteria for antisocial personality disorder include: "irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults.”

Philosophers can play a valuable role here in discerning the consequences of all of these findings for our attempts to build an ethical society. Several questions need addressing. What does the possibility that psychopathy is genetic say about human nature? What steps can we take to “correct” psychopaths, and which of these is the most ethical? If it is true that psychopaths have damaged or abnormal brains, can we hold them responsible for what they do? Are there degrees of psychopathy, so that normal people may possess psychopathic traits?

Eh? In what way? If you consider the difference to be the degree of incorrigibility, then we'd agree. I see one as being a permanent condition while the other is curable, but both involve a 'predatory wild animal-like' disregard for others. I reference any texts by Robert Hare PhD, acknowledged expert on psychopathy. What's your reference?

Sociopathy is not an illness at all, but a natural variant that is not necessarily dysfunctional. Everyone has the ability to turn empathy off. If we didn't, we would fall apart in emergency situations where our loved ones are hurt and need help. Sociopaths have better control of this on off switch than do others, but it's still possible for regular people to master it. Dehumanizing the enemy in war, for example is an internal mastery of the empathy switch that is pro-survival. Sometimes, turning it back on after you have done something unspeakable (killed another in war for example) becomes unbearable because of the tremendous guilt. When the switch gets stuck in the off position, it becomes psychopathy. It's dysfunctional and destructive. It is a life of constant and mounting fear, not of any punishment but that the switch will be turned back on somehow, and the psychopath will have to feel again. Increasing violence and criminal activity is a way of burning the bridge to the feeling self, even though it still exists. When psychopaths brag to us about their brutality, they are warning us to stay away. This is a compassionate act in disguise. They want to be understood just like anyone else, but to connect with others is very dangerous to them. It's an existential threat.

Very insightful comment, one question. Is it possible when the psychopaths crimes become more terrifying that rather than trying to sever the last possibility that may exist with their feeling self that they are instead trying to 'feel' something. Trying to regain that sense of 'caring, hurting, regretting' that is totally lost to them?

Possibly. We don't know enough to say for sure. However, if they notice that they're different, then they will imitate others around them so that they can blend in. However, psychopaths are completely emotionless. They just have a lack of empathy anfld sense of guilt/regret.

They could be feeling rage and pain from not being able to connect properly with anyone. So they try to connect with others, the way everyone else does -- by being with others that feel like they do -- by making others feel the pain and rage they feel. They get their rage and pain validated by making others feel it.

That's for the ones who become psychopathic from bad experiences. The ones who are born without empathy, maybe a different story.

If their brain is truly wired differently, can they be held accountable for their actions? There is no doubt that their actions are harmful to others, but what if they are incapable of other behavior? Then again, if they get to adulthood and aren't in prison, that indicates that they CAN moderate their behavior to some extent, at least enough to get what they want some of the time. You can't manipulate other people if you don't understand what manipulation is about and how to model believable behavior long enough to sucker them.

It used to be that the reality of wrongful conviction was the only thing I had against capital punishment. If psychopaths actually have neural abnormalities to make them what they are, that would also give me pause.

I am not in favor of capital punishment because many innocent people have died because of this. However, psychopaths are still a danger to society whether it is is due to to their upbringing, genes or an unwillingness to be aware of other peoples feelings. I was once married to a psychopath, and I eventually divorced him, as he refused to accept no to violence, or my objections to his rapes and abductions, and he got away with only 8 months in jail, because the police did not keep vigilant records of rape back in 1974. I wish I could still do something about this and if anyone has any ideas on how I could do this, could you please email me at uraniannights@yahoo.com and I will gratefully appreciate this. Kathy Cooper www.kathycooper.com

Thanks for doing that work: overlaying the various lists of criteria from different sources (Cleckley, Hare, etc.) and coalescing them into a core set.

My pet theory: psychopathy (in any degree) is what happens when an individual stops developing emotionally at a very young age; like, in early infancy.

An infant has no empathy, no conscience, no sense of right and wrong. An infant has no interest or ability to plan for the future. An infant demands to be taken care of by others RIGHT NOW, has no sense of personal responsibility, etc. Other people are mere objects that only exist in order to service the infant's needs, etc. In other words, the core traits of psychopathy are *normal for an infant*.

True psychopathy is as bizarre and creepy as though you were to look into a cradle, and the tiny 3-month-old infant lying there opened his eyes, folded its arms, regarded you critically and calmly, and began speaking to you in intelligent, adult-level terms.

But I believe that THAT is what psychopathy is: an adult's body, housing an adult's level of intelligence, cunning, and power *in the service of an infant's desires*. Its actually pretty damned scary.

Annie,
I’m not a scholar, and haven’t done a lot of reading on this subject which fascinates me. I don’t know if anyone has ever analyzed it like that, but your theory sounds valid, and, to me, it sheds some light on this subject. I suspect my ex husband is a sociopath, and one if not two of my brothers also may be. The image you used of the three month old infant, behaving and talking like an adult is vivid and will stay in my mind as a reminder for a more lucid understanding of psychopathy. Thank you.

I have seen the anology comparing a self serving egotistical infant to a psychopath. But if you closely observe typically developing infants, they are elated when they see their caretakers, they cling to them and are distressed when left alone. They love to interact. On the other hand, I suspect that psychopathic infant would exhibit characteristic similar to an autistic infant (child). Such infant would not care to be held, would not try to establish contact with the caregiver, would prefer to look at animate or inanimate objects about the same (research hypothesis for the developmental psychologist!), would not respond preferentially to motherese vs some other sounds (please someone tests this) etc. There would be nothing special/rewarding about humans (over and above anything elese in their environments) to an infant psychopath even in the most loving and nurturing envoronmment. So coming back to your earlier analogy, it may not hold. There is something very unique about psychopath, and eventually begavioral research even on infants will show this (I am convinced). I am hopeful early detection would give us better opportunity to manage and hopefully one day treat these individuals.

I do not believe that psychpaths come in degrees. Research points to the contrarly. One is or is not a psychopath. I think the confusion arises because regular people can be driven to do very horrible things under certain circumstances and this bad behavior is then called psychopathic. But when regular people are bad or go bad, its more accurate to describe them as secondary psychopaths, or a sociopaths.

In my experience, most things "human" come in degrees, but mostly falling within the hump of statistical bell curves. For height most people are fairly close variations from normal, with dwarfism or gigantism rare but still occurring at the extreme 'flanges' of the curve.

You appear to be stating that psychopathy is switched on or off, like sex or eye color. What specific research are you familiar with that backs this up?

The suspicion that psychopathy may be genetic can be tracked to a group of Polish scientists. Their work on Psychopathy was supressed by the state (many were operating anonymously under then Communist regime and many were killed, thus its neraly impossible to even credit them for this original work). Polish psychiatrist Andrew Lobaczewski (a part of the original research team) speculated it is most likely carried on the X chromosome. There is some current reearch looking at the "warrior genes", specifically the MAOA-L and it may be promising. Yet the "warrior genes" hypothesis is not sufficient to account for psychopathy. Many man have this gene variation, and are not psychopaths.

You may have lost me. I’m a firm believer that psychopathy is genetic. But I also currently believe it resides on a spectrum. There’s an autism spectrum, ranging from the extreme autistic (who may never be self-sufficient) to aspergers (some highly successful computer programmers I know). Why not a spectrum for psychopathy?

Some research like to think that psychopathy resides on a spectrum. The low level functioning psychopaths are those presumed to be in jail. But how are we to think of the high functioning ones on the other extreme? Would you say that individuals like Trotsky, or Stalin who were responsible for mass murder of innocent people are successful psychopaths?

Psychopaths function incredibly well at the high position of power. Those are often times brilliant. And how about the high functioning surgeon? I'd predict there will be many "accidental" or "mistaken" surgeries happening on his watch. Psychopaths are absolutely and exhaustively self interested. They are incapable of forming any attachments and are incapable of carrying about other people. This will always be a constant whether you consider them high functioning or not.

I think it’s useful to believe psychopathy resides on a spectrum because it jibes with my personal experiences with psychopaths themselves, as well as the studies of Robert Hare, Babiak, and others I first read when I was trying to figure out the moral insanity I’d encountered.

I’d think Trotsky was a cold hearted rational, but not necessarily a psychopath as he appeared to actually believe in his political philosophies, believing that some people needed to be killed in order to make things better for others. But I see Stalin as a malignant narcissist of the worst kind. He probably only spoke the language of Marx to appear the dedicated communist, but actually only wanted the power. He didn’t care about any ultimate benefits for others unless it enhanced his own position as well. Standard psychopathic behavior includes much deception to achieve control, and the smart ones know how and when to do it convincingly and well. Stalin was definitely a highly successful psychopath.

One moderately functioning psychopath I worked under, had all the appearances of a highly competent engineer. An impressive resume, magna cum laude from a top school, masters degrees... But when I actually worked closely with them they made frequent use of tricks to try and control me (sex, deception, backstabbing...) when none of that was necessary for our success on that project. They made incompetent claims not even a newbie intern would make. I eventually saw that person as lying fraud. They had likely achieved their position with deception and political games. But they had so bewitched others it was hard for me to prove. The movie “Disclosure” had similar themes to what I’d experienced there.

My own view, is that everybody has a psychopath inside them. It is simply the urge to survive well, or from a different angle, it’s the urge to control sources of physical sustenance. But most normal people also have social emotions which (as Dr. Rob Hare implies) act as checks and balances on antisocial behavior. Psychopaths do not have something extra, they have something missing, roughly the same emotional differences as between coyotes, and Bichon Frise dogs. Both are intelligent, but one for wild survival and the other for domestic survival.

What is your evidence for the claim that psychopathy resides on the spectrum? Neither Babiak, nor Hare, nor Cleckley's work offer any evidence for this. Neuropsychological and behavioral research points to the contrary actually. Psychopaths do not process information like other people. For example research shows that when psychopaths look at photographs depicting grusome scenes, you will observe cortical activation associated with object categorization. When you show the same photographs to non psychopaths you will observe engagement of emotional centers. In other words, to psychopath, gruesome distrurbing scenes are just stuff in the world with the emtional valence of tables chairs. Psychopaths are unable to detect facial expression of emotions (they learn to mimic them), they have inhibited startle response, and they process risk differently. Whether you'll find them in jail or running on Wall Street, those things will remain constant.

Any time you are tempted to think you may have "a psychopath inside you" as yourself this. Would you kill a child for fun or because you are bored? Would you start a war just because you could? You see, psychopath would have no problem answering in the affirmative.

And if you are still not convinced of your innocence and think that just there may be a "tiny psychopath" inside you, I strongly recommend you read Les Chants de Maldoror by Comte de Lautréamont.

I would need to see evidence of the stark difference between processing for normal and psychopath, with no gray area possible in between. My real life experiences do not support this. When people are ‘quasi evil’, and I do not see an environmental factor which could cause this, it could only be genetic.

Are you familiar with the Russian fox experiment? Explain why there isn’t a sudden drop between wild and tame subjects. Psychopathy is simply human 'wildness'.

Everybody has a psychopath inside them. It is restrained by social emotions and culture. The same people who ruthlessly butchered British monks with little remorse, are 1000 years later, mostly known for lutefisk and floppy hats. Yet they are genetically identical.

Your point " Other people are mere objects that only exist in order to service the infant's needs"

Babies don't demand to be taken care of right away. That's an adult's perception. A baby merely responds to their own body's stimulus. Hunger, cry. When they reach the age of knowing someone will respond and they can demand, they also start having some sense in other areas of their life, of right and wrong. Such as "not okay to grab mommy's glasses."

The baby doesn't seen others as objects to serve them. They "hope" their need will get met. They also see others as fascinating, and try to connect with them, non-verbally, in a way that's not needs based but is connecting-based.

Here is a scenario which may bear thought: Consider a reasonably normal individual born into a family in which one or more of the members display, at minimum, psychopathic tendencies.

What recourse does such a person possess, psychologically, if subjected to continual psychopathic pressure? If the individual remains psychologically vulnerable (ie. capable of emotion, conscience, empathy and so on) what possible chance is there of survival in that household?

To survive - a biological imperative - the individual must adapt, and such adaptation, by needs may take the form of lowered emotional affect and other symptoms.

Two points of notes, then: it may be possible for 'psychopathic' family structures to form the basis psychopathic personality formation; and more importantly, a psychologist attempting to unravel a fully formed psychopathic personality fails to discern causality, perhaps assigning blame at the wrong source.

Note, I am not arguing against biological determinants in any sense - acutely aware of the adage 'that some people are just born that way'. However, even the best biology can be overridden by decades of concentrated and focused degradation, humiliation and abuse.

You are correct, one does have to adapt in order to survive. I came from such a toxic family everyone was dysfunctional. I just wanted to be left alone but was constantly harassed, & I was the youngest & smallest of course. I always fought back but the verbal & psychological abuse was worse then all the fist fights put together. As we got older I was hitting back harder so instead they would verbally cut me apart, trying to make me breakdown and cry. I had to grow very thick skin in order to survive such vicious insults. I have noticed when I see something sad on t.v. even if it makes me cry, I am able to get over it quicker than most people. I find it easier to move on and I know this is due to the high tolerance that I had to develop in order not to lose my mind or hurt one of them.

Interesting scenario hypothesis!
One thing that is true; another person cannot make another individual a psychopath. And, it would not be 'influential pressure' which would have influence on behavior. It [if at all] would be modeled-behavior that can influence behaviors, yet this could only be deemed as mimicked behaviors (externally manifested) vs. intrinsically adapted. In short, a person can be influenced by others behaviors as in becoming "habit-repertoires" or coping mechanisms, but to exclude making someone else a Psychopath!

Everything alive possesses it. But most humans are restricted from harming others because of our social emotions and training. Psychopaths are by definition, so devoid of empathic emotions that they cannot ever learn them. (But the socially successful P’s find that mimicking these things more efficiently allows them to attain whatever they feel is in their own ‘best survival’ interests.)

Unfortunately, a large percentage of people have/mimic social values limited to whatever (their) society considers acceptable. Probably why Norwegians are today mostly known for lutefisk and floppy hats, but yesterday were infamously ruthless predators.

I think you're right. Psychopathy is simply the urge to survive, but to the extreme. In non-psycholathic people, that urge is suppressed by other urges, namely not to harm other people and so forth. This is to protect our own species. In psychopaths, this is removed. I don't believe there is an "on/off" switch for empathy; rather I believe that the psychopath never had that feeling, or their connection to that feeling was weak and easily severed. They do not connect with others on a deeper, more fundamental level. They do not think about others' feelings, and see others as weak willed to do so.

What does the possibility that psychopathy is genetic say about human nature? Psychopathy is nothing new to the human race the problem is that with the onset of psychoanalysis, we have lied to all of society by claiming that all things are treatable or curable or controllable if we all just try to understand. Well, how’s it working out? The DSM gets thicker every year and we get many new diagnoses, too but there’s one very large factor the psychology field has seemingly removed from society, although this is only because you have forced society to PRETEND it is not real. What is it? EVIL. Paraphrasing Os Guinniess from one of his books, “Denying that evil exists doesn’t make it go away, but rather,gives it free reign.” So while those of us who have a conscience and who were raised up on the lie that every person is born with one, well, you in your field have successfully taken away our innate and natural defenses against evil. We have been successfully trained to deny the invaluable gifts such as fear and revulsion towards repulsive behavior, and also told to accept every behavior in others as okay. That it was because of abuse that all commit crimes, and that we were all born as a blank slate so it was our responsibility and our fault (other humans) if we didn’t fill this slate with good things. We now know this is NOT true as we are all born with inherent temperaments and much of our brains wiring is already set. And many who commit crimes have not been abused and many who were abused are the kindest, most loving people. The problem is always that when you lie to people, it destroys everyone INCLUDING those who thought they’d be able to control others with lies.

So now that we KNOW that psychopathy is a genetic/chromosomal trait, you’ve backed us all into a corner. The psychopaths are prevalent and if you look at it through eyes that aren’t forced to believe the lies and the statistics quoted (and keep in mind, there have never been any empirical studies done to test to see how many psychopaths are out there, all the stats are guesses) you will see that MOST people are psychopaths. Certainly those who are famous and who WANTED to be famous and even most the people you see every day.

You ask if they should be held responsible for their behavior. OF COURSE! As one expert pointed out, when they are charming their potential victim they can somehow maintain their disguise, so they obviously do have control. But if they don’t want to pay the dues that an organized society has, such as punishment for those who commit certain crimes, then they also don’t get the privileges and protection that go along with a society either. As a smarter person put it, “Having the freedom to do whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it isn’t freedom, its anarchy.” And if you’ve ever been to a place where anarchy reigns, you know it is NOT a good place to be.

You know very well there is nothing “abnormal” with the brain of a psychopath in the sense that when a person is born as a psychopath, this is how their brain functions. As with other chromosomal differences there are certain things we know come with that chromosomal variance. Again, we’ve lied to everyone but the lie has not transformed itself into the truth, as it never does. So now some of you realize the extent to which humanity has destroyed itself by saying that if all were good and well-behaved there would be world peace. The results are now we have billions of socialized psychopaths who are externally the most rational, normal-appearing human beings, but who internally are a big ball or envy, hatred, greed and anger. These people were BORN this way and they LOVE what they are (if they were able to admit it publically and not be deterred by societal restrictions they would love to brag about all the evil they think about and also the evil they’ve carried out). And if one is a psychopath that means they have no conscience, so are unable to feel empathy for others, but really, they don’t even see others as anything but things to be manipulated. So as to the DEGREES of it, you know the answer is no. The differences between them are the same as for the non-psychopaths, different personalities display in different ways. Some are loud, some are quiet, some are violent, and some are wild etc.

We always want to BLAME someone but have you noticed that we rarely BLAME the offender? We have become a society that SAYS we DON’T blame but what we really do is blame those AROUND the psychopath because on some level we know that the psychopath will never take the blame. So we doubly burden the shame and guilt of those few left who CAN feel these emotions. People like you ask for help from those who have a conscience, NOT because you really want to help US, but because you have no insight yourselves and need to find out what we think and what we are willing to put up with. Time will tell.

You know, as a diagnosed psychopath I began reading your comment thinking "Oh god not another conspiracy theorist hippy..." but as a got around to the end of it I have to say, you're exactly right. The whole thing about us having no problem coming out with our 'evil' without societal restrictions is spot on. I know because the people I surround myself with don't care and I do tell them everything I've thought and done.

I've been trying to get to the bottom of some of the bigger issues in our culture for a while now. I'm certainly not trying to come off as an authority....just trying to trace the shadows of human behavior I often see projected on the walls, and try and estimate where they might come from.

I've come up with a handful of principles that seem to make sense...at least for now, and here are two of my favorites:

1) The pattern that is most repeated will be the most influential.
2) The pattern that accepts credit for success must also admit responsibility for failure.

Where religion comes into play in regards to those two is that the stories contained within our sacred texts have remained (to an extent, at least), unchanged for hundreds of years and have been repeated millions of times, which has a cognitively preconditioning effect on our minds. Unfortunately, since many have placed a shield of divine inspiration over it, we have not been able to openly disassemble it with what we now know about modern psychology.

For example, I see what I call Bipolar Extremes throughout the Text, which are the two opposite extremes most easily chosen by our minds when we are forced to make a decision under duress. A multiple choice test of two possible answers gives us the highest probability of success (50%), while adding just one more option plummets our chance to a mere 33%. Bipolar disorder is currently described as manic depression, which includes cycles of bliss paired with cataclysmic despair. Interestingly enough, this same pattern seems to present itself in the Heaven (bliss) vs. Hell (cataclysm) pairing.

My hypothesis is that the use of this in scripture, along with many other Bipolar Extremes I see (good/evil, black/white, innocent/guilty, saved/lost, etc.) points to a culture that was under intense stress and was full of fear. Note that rarely if ever do the authors mention non-verbal cues such as facial expressions or posture. They were too concerned about pointing out each other's external behavioral flaws to notice the finer details.

Well you are welcome sir! I have to say, you are a very intelligent man Adam. I'd love to get into a more in depth conversation about this particular subject some time. These sort of things have always intrigued me.

Why not do it here? What better place to discuss mental health issues than out in the open where the professionals can moderate the discussion (that is, if they want to). Again, I claim no authority on these matters, but I do reserve the right to ask questions, trace patterns, and begin conversations that others may not feel comfortable starting.

For example, how do we know that something like Disassociative Identity Disorder (formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder) is not just a predictable adaptive response based on the realization that one personality is not sufficient to tackle our complex world? Good actors get paid millions of dollars to take on different personalities...even ones that are "evil," and we shower them with awards because of it. So, we know that "sane" people are clearly capable of this.

Why then, do we not simply admit the dysfunction in our own world that may drive people to this form of adaptation rather than condemning them for being more flexible in their response than we tend to be? Perhaps we are the ones that are the disorder because we believe we can only have one personality and one box to live in for our entire lives.

This is the problem I have with personality tests such as the DISC test. The last time I filled one out, I was constantly trying to figure out if I should fill in the bubbles based on how I respond at home...or at work, as the two environments are very different. Being playful, for example, is great when you're at home with the kids, but not so much at work...unless, of course, the playful mentality is a mental health strategy used to deal with stress. Annoying test to say the least.

In regards to being a psychopath, it is obviously not all negative, as there have been plenty of Presidents that have fallen into that category as well. For me, rather than shutting down the emotional response to life's ups and downs, which is often characteristic of sociopathy/psychopathy, I have had to redefine and reroute them so that I can more effectively handle stressful situations without becoming devoid of empathy.

Love, for example, does not have to be an emotional response. It can be a logistical, strategic response that effectively allows others to feel calm, safe, and appreciated, even if there is little or no emotion behind the one exemplifying it. It can be almost entirely academic if you know how to architect and structure an environment effectively, just as a builder or developer can create a housing community that elicits either a collaborative, community response, or one that simply presents a cold, sterile mass of apartments where no one wants to interact with anyone. In this manner, those that feel very little emotion could, at least in theory, become some of the world's most valued individuals for their intricate understanding of what makes people feel appreciated and valued.

I think all it would take is an academic understanding of healthy verbal and non-verbal communication, some sociologic and even economic strategies combined with both a tangible and intangible reward system. It's a way of rerouting human emotions that often feel unsafe and unpredictable through a strategic, logistical response system. A more predictable, moral logic code or algorithm, perhaps.

After all, morality appears to be a recognizable pattern that does not necessarily require a set of scriptures and stories about the alleged afterlife to go along with it. Morality could be more simply defined as "sustainable human behavior that balances trust with control and freedom with responsibility." That does not seem too difficult to trace.

Hello there Adam, decided to use my name this time around. I am certainly up for this discussion here as opposed to elsewhere. I am not sure if your actor analogy works very well for Disassociative Identity Disorder as, if I'm not mistaken, DID is generally people who have multiple personalities which take over their mind completely from time to time. I believe that's a bit more than simply acting, no? However I do agree with you on the subject of it being adaptive. There are many other disorders that could be shown in the same light though I can't recall the ones I had in mind. As for being a psychopath, I'm not sure if I'd say I am a full blown psychopath because I do feel certain emotions, I do care about a select number of people and I am not as manipulative as I could be. I'd say my diagnosis may be a tad bit off if you asked me. I also agree that those with little to no emotion would be a great benefit to society in certain positions, the trick is finding the right positions. In regards to your brief statement about morality, I personally believe if you need 'divine' rewards or punishment to have morals then you really aren't morally good because a good person doesn't need to be rewarded for being good.

The reason I use the analogy of acting is that it is the closest thing we have for giving ourselves cognitive permission to adapt and become someone we are not. One actor that comes to mind is Vincent D' Onofrio who was the detective on the Law and Order series. I remember that he had to quit that after a while because he would just dive so deeply into those roles it really started to get to him.

The difference, as you might be pointing to, is that when we know it's acting, there is a part of our minds that is usually still strapped to a safety harness of sorts, or at least some connection back to our normal self that helps us find our way back to where we were before the producer shouts, "lights, camera, action." However, in some instances, it would seem very reasonable to suggest that some people don't want to go back for any number of reasons. If the alternate personality is more aggressive, for example, it would seem to suggest that their first personality isn't strong enough to protect them and they feel threatened.

As far as I can tell, there is a logic to everything. Logic has sequences and steps to it, so I find it very inappropriate for people to assume there is only two boxes to choose from, that of being "logical" or "illogical." There is preferential logic for sure, where someone's intent is to gain an advantage over another. There is also transferable logic, that seeks balance and equality. Many more types, I'm sure.

Your statement that needing a reward essentially nullifies the presumption of morality is very interesting. You seem to have given a hierarchy to different scales of morality, which is something I've had to do as well. There are certainly different grades and types, and no one culture or group holds the international patent on it.

I see psychopathy as a bandwidth of human cognition that, like any other bandwidth, has its definite positives and negatives. On the negative side, I suppose, we have all seen movies where the bad guys come together as evil villains and wreak all sorts of havoc, but could there be a positive use for assembling many of them together as a group of experts....either on psychopathy itself or on a wide variety of other skill sets or backgrounds? If someone were to say, for example, "hey guys, we could really use a group of psychopaths to help us figure this out," what subject matters could they be talking about?

I say this because I believe neither in the Presumption of Innocence (our criminal justice system), nor the Presumption of Guilt (as assumed in the Doctrine of Original Sin), but rather the Presumption of Capacity. We all have the capacity to harm or help the world around us, and there are a great many factors that will influence us in either direction. It is by no means an anarchist statement opposing our laws or lawmakers, but merely a realization that an alternate approach to human behavior may simply be much more efficient.

Well yes I believe that in the right field, psychopaths would be very useful. As for examples? I'd have to think on it for a bit but all that is really coming to mind at the moment is certain positions in the government due to the psychopath's lack of emotion, meaning they may find it easier to make tough decisions where the logically best move would possibly be an immoral one. Like maybe sacificing one city to save the entire country? As for coming together in the field of psychopathy, well who is better to help someone through something than those who have gone through it themselves? Who is better to study a field than those who have had firsthand experience with it? Wouldn't you agree?

You brought the conversation around perfectly. That is incredibly impressive. As someone who has admitted being at least on the moderate spectrum of psychopathy (and I believe it is a spectrum, just like Autism), you have arrived at the cognitive intersection of altruism and the cold hard truth of sustainable human behavior.

What you are telling me is that the best psychopaths are the ones that realize that empathy is critical to the success of leadership. As you said yourself, "who is better to study a field than those that have had firsthand experience with it?"

This is the quintessential point that I was attempting to make earlier. Those of us that struggle with the ability to interact socially and who often default to academics or sterile science as a means of gaining social approval can now find consolation that empathy itself can be a scientific endeavor. I wholeheartedly believe that psychopaths could in fact be some of the most admired and respected people on earth, not because they are naturally social individuals, but because they have funneled their hyper-vigilance into finding a strategic, perfect balance between power and efficiency.

Those that seek to look powerful have no choice but to sacrifice efficiency because the primal response of looking powerful is to look "big," or omnipotent. However, if we realize that we have 250 years of industrialization to teach us that eventually, the power-hungry machines that have only few functions are being replaced by ones that can multi-task at very low levels of energy consumption, then the psychopath might realize the moral story that lies beneath. "Big" is ultimately replaced by "small," which will also tend to incentivize a draw down of the aggressive response. The goal of omnipotence must be replaced by the desire to be Omni-Efficax, which, in the Latin means all-efficient, or all-effective. Socially speaking, it is much more efficient and sophisticated in the long run to understand the intricacies of human behavior than to demand one's way. That alone will allow the people to naturally and organically gain respect among their peers.

The theological ramifications of this are also immense because what this tells us is that a deity who claims to be omnipotent and who inherently does not (or cannot) change has rendered itself obsolete. Adaptation will ultimately trump immutability as the highest moral calling, which means that religions will have no choice but to go back to the drawing board and assess the goals and assumptions of ancient minds. Omniscience, for example, is simply not compatible with omnipotence because omniscience should have known long ago that it is inefficient to always use power and authority as the primary behavioral modifiers. We will now have to begin a search for a deity (if we want one) that more closely resembles Omni-Efficax. This will also cause us to realize that the pursuit of outward perfection at the expense of inner strength leads to catastrophic failure...and as any perfectionist knows, failure is often a fate worse than death itself :).

Well I am glad that I made your day my friend. Thanks for the compliment and I must say, it's been great discussing this with you. Maybe you or I can post contact info for future discussion? Let me know if you're up for it. Have a good day, Adam.

For now, let's keep this as our meeting place. I am in the process of testing a few other hypotheses about human behavior, and one of them has to do with what I call Convergent Logic. It's similar to the construction process in building a home where there are myriad complex processes going on all at once, with their own sequencing, order, etc., all converging on the goal of producing a home that not only looks good on the outside, but that performs very well over the long haul.

As I look out at the universe, especially seeing the images that have come back from the Hubble Telescope, it is very obvious that there is a similar sequencing and order to what's happening around us. If we use an understanding of non-verbal communication, it could also be said that the universe has a personality...or a compilation of personalities to it, perhaps, just like a community of individuals working together on a very large project.

While I understand that this falls prey to the charge of anthropomorphization and even esoteric "hippi-ness," I also realize that humans are incredibly sensitive to story lines. This is why we seem to have created religious stories, as the Cinematic Effect of Theology has had an enormous effect on the human mind, patterning human behavior sometimes for the good but sometimes for very bad.

What I am waiting for...and still testing, I suppose, is what might happen if we try to alter our story lines to fit what we see going on in the universe, rather than trying to force the universe into our own molds and then make excuses for these same stories when the universe proves us wrong. I am also waiting to see what happens if someone such as myself tries to start small conversations, without the intent of charismatic manipulation, but for the true sustainable benefit of humanity, over a very long period of time (it's been about four years thus far).

The vast majority of these conversations have been documented in some way or another, as nearly all of them have been over the internet, and if I don't push my own agenda and simply allow conversations to take their own course, I find that I can "Bookmark" these conversations with the understanding that I know I can pick them up at a later time. Needless to say, I have a great many bookmarks out there, and when I put them all together, the seem to be creating a story line of themselves. I'm just trying to be patient enough to see what the story is that is being created and how, or if, I might play either a small, medium, or large role in something truly timeless.

I believe that the world is held together by what you might call the Kingdom of Nobodies. It's the people that get up every morning, go out and try to do whatever they do with integrity and honor, without anyone having to throw a parade for them or shout their name in the streets. So far, the world seems to be obsessed with looking for superstars, but we forget how important these Nobodies are. The world would spin off in absolute chaos if these folks didn't do what they did every day. So, I guess, I'm waiting to see the emergence of this Kingdom...because I think it's time the world honors them.

Not sure if that made any sense whatsoever, but it was good to write it nonetheless.

You know, what I have found is that fear often keeps us at the surface and in superficial conversations. Maybe it's like learning how to swim. It's easy to splash around in the shallow end because it's fun. Start going into the deep end...or get out of the pool entirely and walk into the ocean, though,...and the need for vigilance and self awareness spikes tremendously in order to survive.

When you mentioned the lack of intelligent conversation in your area (and often in mine), I would probably say that fear is much more prevalent in our society and it keeps people in the shallow end. I have my own fears for sure, as I don't think I'd ever be a steel erector building a skyscraper, for example.

I've had to go very deeply into my own mind over the last several years, though, because that was the fear that was hindering my survival. Like a fully packed and cluttered garage, I've had to take everything out of it, throw out a whole lot of it, and rebuild my thought processes one conversation at a time. A lot of those conversations were between me and the computer screen, but a lot of them were also with people such as yourself, so thanks very much for your presence here.

One of the critical things I stumbled upon along the way is what appears to be a recipe for earning respect. It fits with both the concept of making a successful sale and the acronym S.A.L.E. People fool themselves into thinking that having lots of money means your successful, but when it comes down to true success, the ability to Struggle, Adapt, Learn, and Evolve seems to easily trump wealth. I think it's where the concept of the underdog comes from.

I gather that you have been through a bit of your own struggles as well, which is probably why we get along well. I think if I were to have a religious symbol that I carried around with me, it would probably be the earth ground symbol used in electrical engineering. It's always good to be grounded :).